<a href="http://news.sjvc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/P9210914.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-100" title="Students with the elderly" src="http://news.sjvc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/P9210914-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a>As part of the Diversity Committee’s Peace Day celebration this year, <a title="SJVC Victor Valley" href="http://www.sjvc.edu/victor-valley/">Hesperia </a>encouraged community service. Two of Hesperia’s CMA and AHCM classes visited the Sterling Inn Assisted Living Facility to walk for peace and talk with the residents. The students, joined by instructors Franshella Hopkins and Staci Porter, and Diversity Committee member DaShannon Mason, escorted the residents in a walk around the Victorville, CA facility.

“Peace One Day [was] an awesome day. It was my first time visiting a facility like Sterling and it was interesting. I got to meet different people and [hear] stories about their life when they were younger. I have lived with my Grandparents for about half of my life, but this experience was totally different,” stated AHCM student Maricel Naraval.

“It was an amazing visit at the Sterling Inn. It was an experience I will never forget. There, Joe, Frank, Bob, and John shared stories of war times and even a little bit of personal life stories,” began AHCM student Debra Eversole as she recounted a story shared with her about a man who left the love of his life to go to war. “He came back after 2 years and married the girl he had promised. He went on with his story and broke out with tears. They were married and 7 years later she was diagnosed with breast cancer and passed.”

Eversole stated that seeing this man cry allowed her to open up and share her own stories. “I would like to thank the ones responsible for this field trip.

Student Trynicia Patterson reflected: “This was a great experience for me because I would have never visited the facility on my own, and it inspired me to want to volunteer there.”

The favorite thing that student Chelsea Martin was told, “look forward to getting old, because when you find someone as special as him [gesturing to her friend she met at the facility] it makes it all worthwhile”.

The Sterling Inn Peace Walk coincided with the campus’ walk down Main Street Hesperia. Two hundred students, faculty, staff and community members joined in the walk, some carrying signs with messages like “Honk for Peace” and “End domestic violence.”